Article: THE JOURNEY OF DRESSES TO YOU: roads, crossroads, and detours
THE JOURNEY OF DRESSES TO YOU: roads, crossroads, and detours
Dress, as always, is just perfect! But there is a slight problem with the packaging - used boxes get damaged during transportation and don’t feel pleasant to open and discover a new dress inside. The dress, as always, is perfect.
But.
Reading clients impressions, criticism, and emotions is a very emotional thing. Still, at least one in ten reviews about us is actually not about us.
On review platforms, bad reviews about UNDRESS are rarely about dress quality. More often, they're about poor delivery experiences, unexpected extra charges, or having to pay for returns.
Even though UNDRESS is about as related to those issues as a cashier is to butter quality or egg prices, or a tour guide in Paris is to sudden weather changes - clients think otherwise. And that’s not always pleasant.
From day one, UNDRESS has been an online dress house, which means each dress embarks on a journey to its new home - sometimes a hundred, sometimes ten thousand kilometers away. Sometimes by courier van, sometimes by ships and planes. From Vilnius to Klaipėda, London, Dubai, San Francisco, Porto, Düsseldorf, Guarda, Boden, Bruges, Yehud - everywhere, there are women in love with minimalist elegance.
Each dress is sent off with our own hands and eyes. No, we don’t kiss it goodbye, but we carefully fold every centimeter of fabric and wrap it in soft, thin paper and place it in the original box - so it’s not pressed, not shaken, so the dress isn’t stressed. Then the courier picks it up, places it among a hundred other packages, and drives off. We choose to trust - not only because there’s no other option, but because 97 out of 100 journeys are flawless. The remaining three… sometimes things happen.
“Your courier dropped the dress at the door!” Not our courier - DHL, UPS, LP Express, OMNIVA, or another delivery company’s courier. UNDRESS makes and sews the dress; the courier delivers it to where the client chose: the nearest locker (free) or home (extra fee). Standard speed or express. We pay for a logistics partner’s service - but not for the courier’s mood, sense of responsibility, or passion for the job. As much as we’d like to, we can’t stand behind each courier. If we could, we wouldn’t just stand - we’d deliver them ourselves, the way our dresses and the women who choose them deserve.
“I haven’t received my order yet. It’s been almost a month.” We check. Then we write to the client living in the UK: “You chose standard delivery, which for non-EU countries can take up to 20 working days. That period hasn’t passed yet.” We remind her that at checkout, it’s always possible to choose express shipping (faster but more expensive), which guarantees even a package to distant Australia will arrive in 2-3 days - hand-delivered.
“I received the parcel later than expected…” We check again - when it was ordered, when it was shipped. We understand that a beloved dress is something you want to hug right away. We understand the anxiety when the event date is approaching, but the dress isn’t in your closet yet. We get what it’s like to find that dress at the last minute - on a Wednesday evening, when you need it the following Wednesday… “Five days. It’ll arrive,” the client calculates, clicks “Checkout,” and waits.
But she doesn’t consider that order processing can take up to two business days. If the order was placed before noon - maybe during a coffee break - it might get packed and handed off the same day. But if chosen at 3 PM, it won’t be picked up until the next day and might leave Lithuania the day after that… So, even though the dress feels like it left on Wednesday, it actually departs Friday and - at best - arrives the next Friday. Standard shipping in the EU takes 5–10 business days. The rest of the world? 7–20 days.
Imagine the client lives in Berlin and orders a dress for a Wednesday party. Standard locker delivery costs 10 euros. Express (1–3 business days, home delivery) would’ve cost 25 euros. That feels like a big expense. Everyone chooses for themselves - and the brand isn’t responsible for that.
“I already paid, and you charged me another 90 euros! Robbery!” Oops - classic case. Whenever a client writes “You charged us 118 EUR!”, we patiently respond: “No, that wasn’t us. Your country's tax office charged you. That’s your country’s policy - UNDRESS has nothing to do with it.”
Trade between EU countries is free. That means no extra duties, import VAT, or similar fees - except, of course, the shipping fee calculated at checkout. Non-EU countries (like the US, China, Australia, Brazil…) apply import charges, and rates depend on national tax policies. For example, a British client who pre-Brexit paid around 300 EUR for the ALIUR dress now pays at least 30% more. We get the same 300; the UK tax authority takes another 100+.
She’s angry - at us. Why?
Maybe because she doesn’t know tax policy or doesn’t care. Online, she looks only at photos and prices. All that “unsexy” info about duties, currencies, DDU/DDP, and buyer responsibilities is as boring as the fine print in life insurance contracts (but hey - it’s just a dress…). Plus, big players with legal and accounting teams can bundle these costs into the final price and distribute taxes afterward. That’s a complex, expensive system - something UNDRESS and 95% of small businesses can’t afford. So the same British woman might happily pay 400 EUR for the same dress from British Zalando - because there are no additional fees, and she feels no pain, even though the total includes everything “extra.”
No such thing as a free lunch - we all know that. But people don’t feel it when they’re at peace.
“I had to pay for the return, and I didn’t even get the full amount back!” This complaint often follows the customs story. The customer, whose ALIUR dress made it from Vilnius to London, receives a message from her local courier: the parcel will be delivered after she pays customs and broker fees - 109 pounds total. Shocked, she refuses the parcel and wants to send it back. Fine. She returns the dress, and we refund the remaining amount - after deducting return-related costs: shipping, customs clearance, and other applicable charges.
The customer pays for the return - that’s been UNDRESS policy from day one, and we stand by it. We believe it’s fair since the courier company bills us for those services. We incur a loss and get a negative review only because the customer didn’t read the boring checkout text - even though she checked the box saying she had.
UNDRESS is a small business. Free shipping on every order is too costly - we offer free standard shipping only for orders over 300 EUR. But we don’t offer free returns to anyone - an unpopular decision today.
We calculated that offering free shipping and returns globally would raise every dress’s price by around 30 EUR. That would be fair for a Portuguese customer (Lisbon–Vilnius return is ~26 EUR) but unfair to Lithuanians (returns within Lithuania cost just 5–6 EUR). So UNDRESS chose courage over popularity.
Moreover, free returns are hugely unprofitable. Even giants like ZARA are phasing them out.
In conclusion - the price you see on the website is not the final price. Please read the boring text about potential extra charges, shipping and return rules, to be sure you still want the dress you desire. If yes, we’ll ship it immediately.
And if something happens - email us at [email protected]. Finding solutions together is brave. But if you need answers six times faster - contact your country’s courier directly.
